Why DFI Retail Group Believes Agility Beats Scale | CGF 2026

Hello, this is omnitalk Retail.

I am Chris Walton and I am coming to you live from the Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit from the Vuzion podcast studio in Vienna, Austria.

Now, joining me is someone who needs no introduction to the omnitalk audience.

I think we were joking beforehand.

I think this is my fourth or fifth time interviewing him.

I think we're following each other around the world, too, Scott.

Indeed.

Five different cities.

Yeah, right.

We were just in Berlin together.

But let me introduce Scott Price, the group CEO of the DFI Group.

So, Scott, how you doing today?

Good.

Glad to be here.

Yeah.

So when we were in Berlin, I'm curious, we started talking about this a little bit before we even got started.

But when we were in Berlin, your point about AI was you can talk about AI till the cows come home, but really it doesn't matter if you don't have a great foundation in place.

I'm curious, is there any nuance to that when you attend a summit like this where you don't just have the retail angle, but you also have the manufacturing angle to think about as well?

Well, I think, you know, to quote a movie title, we have to accept that AI is changing everything everywhere, all at once.

And, you know, as I attend these types of events, what's becoming clearer and clearer is, you know, first and foremost, the data cleanup process is accelerating.

And with that, then comes the ability of solving problems that have not yet really been adapted to the AI world.

So, you know, yes, the retailers are figuring out how to be great retailers, and the CPG companies are figuring out how to be great innovators while bringing value to customers.

But if you think beyond that, we have these shared issues like sustainability or reducing the carbon footprint.

BCG recently did a study where, you know, at its max scope, 1, 2 is going to go up by 7% in terms of the carbon footprint as a result of AI, the data centers and the tokenization of the world.

But who's not to say that AI can't be used to help solve the problem and more than offset the 7%?

I think we're really still very early in this process of trying to understand what is the maximum value that we're going to get in AI over the next 10 to 20 years?

You also told me in Berlin that you change your accountability model in terms of how you're running the business at dfi.

Can you talk about that again for the audience that maybe didn't see that interview?

And then also, how do you reconcile that with the approach here at cgf, which is about bringing people together in a, in a kind of nuanced way.

You know, the megatrend that's happening now is challenging the traditional model that large scale retailers come together with global brands and they solve the needs of customers and the problems of the world.

Yesterday in this, in the board, I sit on the board of the cgf, we reviewed some very interesting statistics that showed if you look at by category and you're talking soft drinks and crackers and snacks, et cetera, global brands have lost market share over the last five years.

It's being picked up by own brands of retailers as well, startups and small interesting local companies.

And the reality is the decentralized model is the most agile to understand those changing needs and, and to be able to battle those local competitors.

And so if you try and centralize, and we were quite centralized before, you end up trying to scale what are becoming commodities and you're missing the specialization that can only be developed at a local level.

I think AI will accelerate this process because what it'll do is it'll, you know, it's a little bit like solving a problem by just putting it into perplexity or Claude or ChatGPT.

The reality is you're going to be able to innovate and then be able to figure out how to manufacture and get to market using AI so that you see more and more of these small businesses being able to attack the market share of global brands.

So then being a leader here at CGF and amongst your peers is that approach you advocate to help with the connective tissue that needs to form around some of the bigger issues you guys are trying to tackle.

When I think about the environment, supply chain resiliency, all of those things, yeah,.

Those are the topics that to me are universal, that need to be solved at scale.

So for example, carbon footprints and how we reduce them, food safety, I mean this is a really important part of what we together come together as retailers and CPG companies.

Those are the type of topics that are global that should be brought through forums like this which are global in nature.

Scott, you're also, to that point, you're also the co sponsor of the, of the ctc, the Climate Transition Coalition.

Right.

So I'm curious, but let's stay within your own business first.

How do you reconcile again the kind of dichotomy of making the right decisions for that effort against the capital investments?

How do you personally think about that?

So you know, look, this is a forum by which best practices are pretty competitive because it's a shared problem.

And I think in general we've all made progress on scope one and two, which in essence is, you know, your grid output and how much you use, etc.

So for retailers it's electricity in terms of air conditioner.

For manufacturers, it's their, it's their factories.

And so I think for the most part, many who have, you know, say 30, 40, 50% reductions by 2030 have made progress.

The challenge we all now have is scope three, which is in essence what you sell or what you take to market.

So for us as a retailer, our biggest problem are commodities, rice, meat, dairy.

And so again, it's not in our interest to try and solve the problem ourselves.

As a small retailer, we've made progress, for example, on rice.

We now have a great Thailand example of being able to have a very low carbon rice because of the fact most people don't realize that water usage in rice creates an enormous carbon footprint.

So we've done this.

But there are tens of thousands of small farmers in Thailand.

We can't do this on our own.

We need to work with other retailers, we need to work with the government.

These are the kind of forums where we can tackle those types of problems, I think in a much more effective way.

So you're saying the problem kind of necessitates that you have to come together?

Absolutely.

There is.

The dichotomy is almost false as I.

Presented it, it's going to be impossible as a retailer on their own to solve a reduction of significance in their scope 3 without some level of collaboration and coalitions.

Got it.

So, so then again, as a leader here at the conference, gonna put you on the spot here too.

Is there a commitment that you are asking for from your partners here that are in similar positions across the industry?

So one of the things that we are now currently working on is a standard data classification system.

Okay.

You know, everyone started this journey somewhere five, six, seven, eight years ago, and at that point we were all trying to solve the problem on our own.

Whereas if you're a manufacturer or a branded company, trying to solve 16 different ways to report is time consuming and it's wasteful.

Right.

Adds cost for them, which then adds costs through to us, which then passes on to the customer.

So how do we figure out together to create a platform with a reporting standard that makes it easier and much more effective for anyone?

Again, those kinds of standardizations are pretty competitive.

It's no different than a, than a QR code.

Right.

I mean, it's just simply a standard, something that hadn't existed, something we're working on.

So I'm curious because I hear that a lot from your position, the chair atop which you sit.

What makes that so difficult to accomplish?

Well, look, you know, a lot of these systems and these standards are hardwired into tech systems or are aligned to a provider.

Many have carbon calculators, and there's five to eight different carbon calculator entities that are out there all of tackled the same problem in slightly different ways.

And if you're trying to maintain those each slight different ways, it's like trying to say that you need to have seven different QR codes because there's seven different readers that are being used.

Right.

It's inefficient.

So we're tackling that now to simplify.

Right.

And I imagine it's different by country too, right?

Everywhere in the world.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Probably even within countries too, at times.

Yes.

Right.

Okay.

You have one of the most interesting career arcs of anyone that we consistently bring into this show.

So I am curious.

I want to get you out of here on this.

You've probably been asked this question a bunch, but I've never asked it of you.

And so my question is, what have you seen that?

What mistakes have you seen leaders make as they try to understand and adapt their business to different cultures throughout the world?

You know, I have been asked the question before, and I don't think country culture very different than adapting to a company culture.

And, you know, the, the careers of 30 years with a single company is dying.

Companies are moving too quickly.

You need to adapt too quickly to rely upon a comfort zone that you'll stay in one culture, both national and as well in a company culture.

So I advise people to do three things when they join a new company.

Okay?

So the first is figure out how is conflict resolved in the company.

So when people disagree, how is conflict resolved?

Because if you come in guns blazing and it's much more consultative, you're going to fall on your face.

Right.

The second is how does influence work?

Now, you know, that's generally less of an issue, say, in a single country, but if you are a multi country, you know, in North Asia, it's very hierarchical and there are processes that say, look, you need to wait to go up the senior lane, whereas in other parts of the world, it's much more consultative.

And so how does that influence work?

And the third is who seems to be succeeding and why?

And if you can figure out, say, in a couple of months those three answers, you've got a pretty good chance of adapting to either a country culture or a company culture different from where you've come from.

So that last point being, like, who do you want to model yourself after?

Exactly.

Wow, that's great advice.

I wish I'd had that 10 or 15 years ago.

It would have been super helpful.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Right.

How long did it take you to get that?

Long time.

Yeah.

That framework just came to you over time?

It did, yeah.

That's great.

Well, Scott, thanks for making time with us again from Berlin to Vienna.

I don't know where we're going to see you next, but I imagine we will cross paths here very, very soon.

Appreciate your time.

You, too.

All right, that was Scott Price.

Thanks to Vuzion for making our coverage possible.

Thanks to the Consumer Goods Forum as well.

And as always, be careful out there.